Stadium curfew imperils concerts
Clashes with late-night shows, cities nothing new
The San Francisco 49ers and the Santa Clara City Council are knocking heads over the weeknight curfew at Levi’s Stadium, and to hear one side tell it, the battle could affect the concert scene in the Bay Area for years to come.
Whether that happens will remain to be seen. A safer bet is that occasional clashes will occur between entertainers and venue owners on one side and neighbors and municipal officials on the other.
The concert debate intensi-
fied on Thursday when the council voted 4-3 to deny the 49ers request to extend for one hour the 10 p.m. curfew for a concert by megaplatinum rock act Coldplay on Oct. 4.
“We won’t be able to book concerts — there is no question,” said 49ers President Al Guido, protesting the 10 p.m. weeknight curfew. “If the concerts don’t come, it will negatively impact the city. The concerts are forecast to make $100 million for the city during the term of this lease and they’re throwing that business away.”
It’s the latest chapter in a story that likely has been going on since there have been electric guitars and amps. Rockers and their fans want to make noise late into the night. And city officials need to contain the noise and disruptions that stadium events impose on the surrounding neighborhood.
The tug-of-war is a global phenomenon and provokes different reactions.
In July two of the world’s biggest rock stars — Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney — had their microphones turned off during a mammoth gig at London’s Hyde Park, reportedly sending some 75,000 fans home disappointed that they didn’t get to see more of this historic pairing.
And at the BottleRock Napa Valley festival in May, organizers killed the sound on the Foo Fighters’ headlining set in order to meet the 10 p.m. curfew. Front man Dave Grohl kept right on rocking, minus the sound, drawing huge cheers from the audience.
Killing the sound certainly resolves the issue, but is it a smart move?
“That’s the worst thing you can do,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert industry publication Pollstar. “That’s a dangerous crowd control situation. Obviously, the fans (at BottleRock) didn’t riot. But if they did, how would you stop it? You turned the P.A. off — you can’t even talk to them.”
Organizers did not cut the sound at Levi’s when Irish rock band U2 blew an hour past the imposed 10 p.m. curfew in May. That drew a strong rebuke from Mayor Lisa Gillmor and a $1,000 fine from the city.
“The reason we’re in this situation is because the 49ers, who manage the stadium, decided on their own to violate our city law, which is our noise ordinance,” she said at the time. “It’s created problems for VTA. It’s created problems for Santa Clara. It’s really going to create problems for our neighborhood and our residents.”
Don’t expect a tonguelashing and a $1,000 fine to eliminate this problem, not when you’re talking about rock acts and sports franchises worth millions of dollars.
“That’s one of those, ‘Don’t even bother me with that’ expenses. It’s incidental,” Bongiovanni says.
Outdoor venues throughout the Bay Area have some type of curfew. Oakland Coliseum’s, for example, has an 11 p.m. cut-off time, which can be extended with permits.
Concord Pavilion has an 11 p.m. nightly curfew and UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre draws the line at 10 p.m. on Sundays through Thursdays and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Punishments for violators vary, and it is hard to tell if any of them have an effect.
“When you are talking about events that gross in the multi-million dollars, even a $20,000 or $50,000 fine is not that big a piece of the pie,” Bongiovanni says. “But it comes out of what the artist is going to net, so if that gets too excessive then they’ll go, ‘Well, I can make more money somewhere else … ’ ”
So is Guido’s warning a valid one? Will Santa Clara’s strict deadline on Levi’s Stadium curfews turn the venue into a rock ‘n’ roll ghost town?
Not necessarily. Even with the curfew restriction, Levi’s still has some major advantages over the competition.
“Artists are going to go where they think they can make the most money. Often times, that’s the bigger and newer stadium — until you prove otherwise,” Bongiovanni says. “If playing Levi’s Stadium becomes a giant pain in the ass for anyone who goes in there, then, at some point, that money differential is going to be overcome by the convenience of playing somewhere else — where they’re welcome.”